3 more dead in the last week

Post Reply New Topic

T-shirt Don. He was known for making tie dye t-shirts and selling them up and down the beach decades ago. Worked as a film set designer, handyman, carpenter etc between gigs. Nice guy, entertaining, funny conversations. He was 70 or so and had put on weight in his later years - from what I heard about him passing out and looking off a few days before he passed I think his heart gave out.

Wayne. I haven't seen an official announcement, but I read a post yesterday that he hadn't been seen in a week and there was yellow tape around the base of the trees where his tree fort/platform home is.. cops aren't gonna section that off on private property if Wayne didn't expire 35' up. He was also 70 or so. Interesting character. Robbed a few banks in Ontario and sold a lot of acid in (or from?) Australia back in the day, spent his later years spun on the meth he ingested daily and toiling away day and night digging out tree roots on a hill side "restoring," (damaging/eroding) the cliff. Harmless, though, and quite the funny character when he would come around.. usually might see him pop by a fire in the winter once in a blue moon to say hi. He lived under a tree by the ocean and slept on a piece of plywood for ~20+ years until he got chased out of there and built his tree fort on some big $ investor's vacant property several blocks away - he had an ocean view over Spanish Banks for free while the people across the street probably paid more than $50M for their house. Anyways, I saw a fb comment from someone who would know who included him in the 3 so my assumption was correct - he passed in his sleep up on the platform he climbed up to nightly with no ladder or anything.

3rd one I'm not sure I knew, just saw the name. Steve Brown. I looked on Facebook but couldn't find the guy. My guess is that he was one of the much older people that may not have ever been online. If I saw a picture maybe I'd recognize him from the beach.


Another artist made a little floating memorial for Don, lit a candle and floated out a few nights ago.. the candle stayed lit for at least 3 hours. In the Spring someone's planning on organizing a tie dye t-shirt making day in his honour.

For Wayne, there will be something for sure.. he was around for decades and just one of the almost hard to believe the guy is a real person funny characters around there lol. There'll be a beach funeral, and if he's cremated and Ninja can collect the ashes he'll be spread in the ocean just off the point where he used to live.

Steve? Not sure yet who he is, but again if he was known to a lot of the older regulars they'll have their beach memorial moment for him, too.


I guess it was each of their times to go. Just quite a lot in a week - especially for those who really knew all 3.

It sounds like they are least got quite a lot out of life. I love people who have a story to tell.

True that!

There are a lot of people in the Wreck Beach community with rather fascinating life stories rich in experiences and various eccentricities. LOTS. Like way above the normie world average for sure. Never a dull moment learning about so many people there from all walks of life!

Wayne - apparently he fell from his tree house platform on the downhill side about 60’ below. Kinda hope he was dead before he hit the ground.

Number 4 this week: Just heard that Shawn Van Neer of VND passed away last night. Colon cancer. He wasn’t very old - 50ish. He was a pretty legendary Volkswagen builder/bit of an automotive engineer. He built twin turbo’d and supercharged VW GTI’s that were magazine show pieces back in the late 90’s early 2000’s. Made some custom 4x4 stuff, rooftop tents too, and had a custom water hauler/blaster unimog that
he rented for forest fire fighting for a while. An accomplished dude that’ll be missed by the car community.

bad way for that last one to go. hopefully all of 'em are frolicking in the elysian fields now.

I’m sure he endured a lot of hell going through treatments etc like my dad did, but maybe it was a peaceful painless death.

Meanwhile I bet Wayne went out in excruciating pain.. hopefully it was more instant than crippling injuries that left him unable to move and he had to suffer for days. But no matter which way you slice it if you fall off of a platform up in a tree off the side over a ravine and you drop 60’ before you hit the ground I’d imagine you’re not gonna have a good time.

good thing that once one reaches the pearly gates, all that earthly pain disappears.

I'm sorry about the losses of so many in your community in such a short span of time. I hope you're managing okay emotionally.

Sweet Pea hugs

It is a good thing,I feel to have a knowledged these people ..and someone documents their passing/their lives.

Yeah - a few people have mentioned that it's nice that there are a bunch of photos of some of these guys to share memories.. especially since there's no pictures really allowed to be taken at the beach (nude beach) so it's nice that people within the community have some photos of each other/old timers. (clothed/shirtless etc, but a bunch of nudes haven't been posted lol)